Insomnia
by Uche Boche
Summary: A spooky Earthbound fanfic ment for the Starmen.net Halloween Funfest. After his defeat, Giygas infests the dreams of the Chosen Four. Please review


Insomnia  
By Titanic Ant a.k.a. Uche Boche  
  
  
Ness stood there, in the void. The nothingness. The only thing with him in the darkness was the swirling crimson gas. It surrounded him, leaving him no were else to look to, no where to escape. The gas started to take form. It molded into a face. The face of insanity. The face of hatred. The face of terror.   
  
The face of Giygas...  
  
It spoke to him.  
  
Ness......Ness.......Ness!   
  
I know you can hear me. You can feel me, Here in your dreams -no......your nightmares- You are a fool to think you could defeat me completely. I may have been destroyed by those prayers, but I live on in your dreams  
.......forever  
  
From this Halloween till the day you die, I will haunt you. In your mind, you can never defeat me, never rid of me, Never escape...  
  
......Ness...it hurts..... Ness...It's not right.....  
  
You will be afraid to fall asleep, for that is where I will have my revenge, on you, and your friends.  
....until you die  
  
  
Ness woke up in a cold sweat. He looked around his dark room. The Halloween decorations casted ominous shadows in the moon light. Nothing more. There was no one else in his room. Even so, he felt a tingle in the back of his mind, like someone was watching him...always....  
  
  
  
Paula was exhausted. All day long, she has been helping the kids at the preschool prepare their Halloween costumes. A few of the girls wanted to go as Paula, their hero who helped save the world and cleaned up the occasional spilt milk. After the long day, she dropped down on her bed and fell instantly asleep.  
  
She was back there. The Cave of the Past. But this time, she wasn't trapped within the refines of the robot body, nor was she with any of her friends. She was alone.  
She walked along the pulsing tunnel of veins and brain matter to the Devil Machine. The tunnel filled with the horrible deep breaths of Giygas, emitting from the unholy device. The round eye-like organ that took Ness' face stared at her, as if it could see through her soul. Suddenly, the pulsing and breathing stopped, the scarlet mist rose from the machine and took on Giygas' face, trapped in an endless scream.  
  
Foul, miserable girl. It was you who condemned me to death with your horrid praying. You who banished me with your wretched hope, I curse you with all of my hate! I will haunt you here, in your sleep where no amount of praying can give you any escape from my wraith! Every night when you slumber, I will spite you with all of my fury until you succumb and feel my pain!   
  
She woke up with a shock. Shivering in fear of what occurred in her dream, she tried her best to reassure herself.  
"It's just a dream. Just a dream." She repeated to herself in the darkness. "He's not here. He's dead. It can't be...... It can't be...."  
  
Jeff was up late working on his inventions. He toiled diligently to fix his battery-powered-battery-charger throughout the night. His eyesight began to blur as he became drowsy and his eyelids became heavy. Soon, he collapsed on his work table and drifted off to sleep.  
  
Jeff drifted alone in the chaos. There was no up, no down. Everything around him swirled in a disorienting array of disorder. All around him was Giygas' blood red face, spinning around in a dizzying array.  
  
I have come for you. The son of Andonuts. You have been a splinter in my mind's eye ever since your arrival from winters to save the other chosen two from their imprisonment in Threed. As your punishment, I will bedevil you mind each twilight as you sleep. Your genius will be lost and your intellect will just be faded memory when I'm done with you. It will not end there. It will never end.....  
  
Jeff was paralyzed with disbelief when he awoke. The simple thought of his genius being destroyed by Giygas was simply too much to bear. His intellect is what set him apart and gave him an identity. Losing that would be like loosing himself....  
  
Poo sat on the summit of Palace of Mu. A soft breeze blew by the serene landscape of Dalaam as Poo relaxed his whole body and emptied his mind. However, this time his ancestors did not great him in his quest for emptiness, it was Giygas.  
  
Poo, crown prince of Dalaam, master of the starstorm, you are trying to achieve Mu, the art of emptiness, are you not? It is what gave you the power to defeat me, so I must take it away from you. From this Halloween forth, you will never be able to achieve peace and emptiness again...  
  
A scream erupted in Poo's mind. A horrible, howling, piercing scream that made his skin crawl like nails on a chalk board. The sound bored into his mind, twisting and turning his once-peaceful thought into chaos and disorder. The pure madness and insanity of Giygas drove into him, filling him with unequal rage and terror. He grabbed the sides of his head in order to regain some sanity, but it proved to be futile. He felt like he was spinning, twisting, falling. He did. He fell off the palace of Mu and descanted onto the rocky ground of Dalaam like shards of dreams shattered by Giygas's rage.  
  
  
  
Ness' mom woke up early that morning as she always did to make a cup of coffee and read the morning paper. Dressed in her robe and fuzzy bunny slippers, she walked down the stairs into the living room to find Ness curled up on the couch.  
"Good morning honey, you're up early. Did..." she stopped in mid-sentence when she realized that something was wrong. He was still in his pajamas, he looked pale, his eyes were bloodshot and he shivered every once in a while. "Is something wrong? Did you get enough sleep?"  
"I...I'm not going to s-sleep" He said without looking at her in a disturbed manner.  
His mom was bewildered by the unusual answer, "Did you get any sleep at all?"  
"I...I can't sleep. Or else he is t-there" he said with a far away gaze.  
"What? Who is there?" his mom asked trying to make some sense out of her son's gibberish.  
"G-Giygas. He's there, in my dreams"  
She shook her head and tried to comfort her son, "But you defeated that Giygoo or whatever. He can't hurt you now. It must have been a nightmare."  
"No" he said cutting her off, "He's real. He said he will take revenge on me and my.....oh-no"   
"What is it?"  
"Paula!" He jumped off of the couch as the epiphany hit him. He ran out of the door and headed towards Twoson.  
"Ness! Wait!" his mother yelled after him.  
  
  
Paula sat on her bed, staring out the window as she has been doing all night long. The all consuming fear of Giygas haunting her dreams kept her awake all night long. Her face was pale and as white as chalk. Dark bags formed under her eyes from the sleep depravation and her normally straight blonde hair was tangled in a garbled mess. She was eerily silent as she stared out the window. Looking at the morning birds singing in the brightly colored autumn trees covered with morning dew, a single tear ran down her cheek as she realized that the terror Giygas has struck into her heart has stolen the pleasure of the beautiful sight. But what would that lead to? Will she never again be able to enjoy the simple things in life? Never again smile at the carefree preschoolers. Never again be able to enjoy her favorite song? Never again enjoy....life?  
Her tears were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Ness stood in the doorway, looking as pale and weak as her. She knew that he was going through the same ordeal as her. Another tear rolled down her cheek.  
"Paula, is he...?" he asked.  
"Yes..." Paula said meekly without needing Ness to finish.  
Without another word, they embraced. Paula was grateful to have someone to comfort her, especially Ness.  
"What about the others?" Ness asked.  
"I don't know, I haven't heard anything yet..."  
"I'll give Jeff a call," Ness said as he broke their embrace and reached for the telephone. Before picking it up, he looked back at Paula. "Are you ok?"  
She nodded and sniffed, "Yeah,"  
Ness picked up the phone and punched in the number for Snow Wood.  
"Hello, Snow Wood Boarding School, Maxwell Labs speaking," Maxwell said on the other end.  
"Is Jeff there?" Ness asked.  
"Sure is, in fact he's been up all night working on his projects, I'll connect you,"  
A few beeps and rings where heard while connecting then Jeff picked up. "HelloJeffAndonutsherewhoisthis?"  
"Uh...Jeff, is that you?"  
"Yesit'smeheyNessgoodtohearfromyou!" Jeff spook incredibly fast, "I'vebeenhaveingtheseweirddreamswithGiygasand..."  
"Jeff! Slow down!" Ness interrupted.  
"Oops sorry. As I was saying, lately I've been having these strange dreams with..."  
"Giygas in them." Ness finished for him, "I know, Paula and I have been having them. Why are you so hyper? Paula and I are dead tired."  
"Since I couldn't sleep without Giygas messing around with my mind, I used the Instant Revivalation Machine. But I didn't feel quite rested enough so I went in it a few more times, maybe a few times too many because now I got all this energy now. At least I have time to work on my projects like the battery-powered-battery-charger but I don't know how long I can go on like this." Jeff explained.  
"Have you heard anything from Poo?" Ness asked.  
"Not yet,"  
"Hold on, I'll try calling him," Ness hung up on Jeff and punched in Dalaam's phone number.  
"Yes?" the voice of a Dalaam man come from the other end.  
"Can we talk to Prince Poo?"  
"I'm afraid not. The prince had an accident."  
"An accident?" Ness asked out loud, suddenly becoming anxious.  
"Yes, he fell from the palace of Mu while training in the art of nothingness. He is alive, but he sustained a head injury and is in a coma."  
"A coma?! We'll be right there." Ness hung up.  
"A coma.....poor Poo," Paula said softly as more tears came down. "How could this have all happened? How...?" She asked, hoping there was some explanation for these terrible events.  
"I don't know, but we have to go to Dalaam right away." Ness said rushed.  
"But how? You won't be able to teleport being this tired."  
"Oh, right," Ness suddenly realized that his PSI powered worked when he was mentally strong, unlike now. "I'll call Jeff again and ask him to take us in the Skyrunner."  
  
  
Paula waited on the porch for Jeff to come in the Skyrunner. She sat between Ness and the jack-o-lanterns the preschoolers made, or rather, they chose the design and she cut it out. Paula sighed as she looked in the window and saw the preschoolers taking a peaceful nap. How calm they looked asleep, not having to worry about dead spirits haunting them.   
Her thoughts were interrupted by a whistling falling sound then a large explosion.  
"That must be Jeff," Ness said rather matter-of-factly.  
They went around the corner to see the Skyrunner made another one of it's infamous crash landings next to Berglin Park, which is being made into an haunted house for trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Jeff stepped out of the wreck, all black with soot as they all looked after a botched PSI teleport attempt.  
After he dusted himself off, Paula could see that his clothes were rather ragged looking compared to his normal clean look with his tucked in shirt and pressed pants. His hair stood straight up as if one of his projects electrocuted him, which likely happened. He wasn't pale like Ness or her, but he was noticeably hyperactive by how his fingers and eyebrows twitched involuntary every once in a while.  
  
  
After Jeff fixed the Skyrunner, in record time too, the group flew to Dalaam, also in record time with Jeff piloting. After another crash landing that was dangerously close to the "peeeet pooot" man, they rushed to Dalaam Royal Palace where Poo was being kept.  
Ness was overwhelmed seeing Poo in such a state. The once powerful ninja warrior that he looked up to and respected looked weak and helpless in his stage of comatose. His face was also pale, but from the blood loss from the fall not like Ness' sleep deprivation. An expert medical team that came all the way from Winters and Fourside monitored Poo's condition closely.  
"How did this happen?" Paula asked the doctor.  
"He fell from the Palace of Mu during his training, landing head first into a rock. Witnesses said that before he fell, he was holding his head and screaming for some reason," The doctor explained with a monotone voice.  
"Why would he be doing that?" Jeff asked.  
"Because he was fighting Giygas' control over him," came a voice behind them.  
The three turned around to see the Star Master standing behind them. "Giygas attempted to infest his mind during his Mu training like he did in your dreams."  
"How do you know all of this?" Ness asked inquisitively.  
"A great deal of knowledge come to one who has mastered the art of nothingness. Poo's condition is no normal coma. He is being held in his state of comatose by Giygas' evil influence. However, there is a way to stop Giygas."  
"How?" All three chosen ones asked at the same time.  
"The Apple of Enlightenment, of course,"  
"The Apple of Enlightenment, that thing that Buzz Buzz mentioned?" Ness asked.  
"None other," the Star Master said casually.  
"But, how is it going to be able to help us defeat Giygas? Doesn't it just make predictions and stuff like a magic eight ball?" Ness asked.  
"It does much more than that, come and see." the Star Master said and pressed a panel on the golden palace walls. A section of the wall opened up to reveal a stairway that lead underground.  
After endless flights of stairs, they came to a room dimly lit by burning torches. "Come and see the Apple of Enlightenment," the Star Master said as he motioned to table shrouded in darkness.  
As the three chosen ones casted the light from their torches on the table, it revealed ....... a rock.  
"What gives, it's just a rock?" Ness said in a grumpy manner.  
"This looks like the rock from the Stoic Club in Summers," Paula stated.  
"That is correct. We reclaimed the Apple of Enlightenment form the Stoic Club after it went out of business and became a truck stop,"  
"But, how can this rock be the Apple of Enlightenment? I thought it would be ......an apple," Ness said.  
"Do not judge on appearances Ness. This is in fact the Apple of Enlightenment. It's cosmic knowledge is so vast and powerful that people in it's presence become enlightened, just like the patrons at the Stoic Club,"  
"But if that's true, then why didn't we become suddenly enlightened. And the club owner and the waitress didn't seem too enlightened," Paula asked.  
"The owner was enlightened enough the figure out that was the only way he could get away with charging $20 for a glass of water. As for you, the enlightenment from the Apple of Enlightenment effected your PSI abilities more than you actual IQ."  
"It can do that?" Ness asked.  
"Oh yes, in fact the Apple of Enlightenment effects all of us. It speaks to all of us, trying to enlighten us. However, the human brain is always working too fast for the Apples of Enlightenment's whispers to get through. The only way for it to be heard is to be in close proximity to it or to empty your mind, like by the art of Mu."  
"But can it help us defeat Giygas?" Paula asked.  
"Why don't you ask it?" the Star Master nodded towards the Apple of Enlightenment.  
The three approached the Apple of Enlightenment on the table. Suddenly it began to shine a brilliant blinding light. Taking them to out of this world..... into the world of dreams.  
  
  
The void was dark, cold and empty. Although it was silent, the sheer emptiness was deafening. The soulless crimson figure of abomination leered over Poo, tormenting him to a point of suffering no one ever thought possible. He stood there, holding his head in anguish, trying to rid his mind of the insanity.  
"No! Giygas, stop!" Ness yelled though the darkness to the evil incarnation.  
Without loosing his grasp on Poo, the scarlet face towered it's menacing face over Ness.  
Ness, so, you finally came to meet your doom. I will enjoy this.  
A shockwave of Giygas' mysterious attack hit Ness like a bulldozer. He flew back for what seemed to be an internally until he collided into Jeff.  
"Stop!" Paula exclaimed into the barren darkness, "PSI Fire Omega!!!"  
The fiery attack burned though the void towards Giygas resulting in a burst of flame and ember.  
As the smoke cleared, Giygas still lingered there, unaffected.  
I am simply shocked by your stupidity. Do you honestly think that you attacks can hurt me? There is nothing to hurt, I am anti-matter, I am the darkness, I am evil energy!!!  
Giygas's swirls of gas lashed out through space and stuck Paula violently.   
You on the other hand, are weak and vulnerable.  
Giygas released another salvo of intensified assaults. Each more catastrophic that the last. Only Ness' PSI Lifeup kept them going, but there attacks proved to be ineffective.  
Your attacks will not work, the Dark One cannot be defeated in such a manner.  
"Who said that?" Ness asked into the darkness.  
It is I, the Apple of Enlightenment. Do you remember, what defeated Giygas the first time?  
"Yeah, it was my praying," Paula answered.  
Correct, but it wasn't simply the praying that defeated him, it was something more.  
"It was the happiness and hope of the other people who prayed," Jeff added.  
That is correct. As a being of pure darkness, Giygas cannot tolerate the qualities of virtue. Just think of your hopes, your dreams, your happiness.  
Without questioning the Apple of Enlightenment's suggestion, Jeff thought of his friends at Snow Wood, the great times he had inventing stuff with his father and the Mr. Saturns and how proud everyone was of him.  
Huh, what is happening? I am losing my power, stop it! Stop it at once!!  
Paula thought of her parents, her friends and the preschoolers she cared for all of these years as if they were family.   
No! Stop it at once! No....stop. It's not right, it's not right!  
Giygas's power was weakening. The aura of chaos and confusion that he felt after Giygas was taken off of the Devil's Machine filled the air. Ness thought deep and hard of a his family. His mom, who always cared for him like he was still a child. His sister, who always trusted him without question. Even King, and his loyalty. He though of all of his friends. Jeff, always resitlent and cunning. Poo, the strong silent one who encouraged him to go on. Then he thought of Paula...  
Aaaarrrggg!!!! Ness, it's not right. Ness...... I feel happy..... Go back, Ness, go back. The pain, the pain.  
Giygas' crimson image lost focus, swirling around in a random and chaotic way. As his grasp on Poo lost hold, Poo thought of all of his virtues. His family, his kingdom, and his friends.  
Ggghhhaarrrr!!! No, this can....not be! I cannot be defeated! NooooooooArrrggg!!!  
Giygas' form distorted and warped around them. The once horrifying image became static like when they defeated him before. From with in the depths of the chaos and horrible screeching sound came forth and overtook the chosen four.  
  
  
Ness, Paula and Jeff all awoke on the floor of the Dalaam Palace. Poo was also there, awakened from his Giygas-induced coma. "We are victorious."  
  
  
That Halloween night, Ness laid in his bed without a single nagging worry in his mind. He no longer had to fear Giygas ever again. As little kids ran through the streets, going door to door asking for candy, Ness simply closed his eyes and eagerly awaited sleep. Paula has already returned to the preschool in Twoson. The preschoolers were upset that Paula would rather sleep than go trick or treating with them, but he knew that once they got their candy, they would forget about it. Jeff returned to Winters to get some real sleep that would hopefully calm him down. Poo, of course did not need any sleep at the time and the doctors checked him out and said there were no complications from the coma. Paula even got Poo to take the preschoolers trick-or-treating while she got some much needing rest. Poo agreed, after she told him what trick-or-treating was. Ness exhaled slowly in his comfortable bed.  
"No bad dreams" he said softly before drifting off to sleep..  
  
  
  
  
  
The End. 


End file.
